One form of energy activated therapy for destroying abnormal or diseased tissue is photodynamic therapy (PDT). PDT is a two-step treatment process, which has received increasing interest as a mode of treatment for a wide variety of different cancers and diseased tissue. The first step in this therapy is carried out by administering a photosensitive compound systemically by ingestion or injection, or topically applying the compound to a specific treatment site on a patient's body, followed by illumination of the treatment site with light having a wavelength or waveband corresponding to a characteristic absorption waveband of the photosensitizer. The light activates the photosensitizing compound, causing singlet oxygen radicals and other reactive species to be generated, leading to a number of biological effects that destroy the abnormal or diseased tissue, which has absorbed the photosensitizing compound. The depth and volume of the cytotoxic effect on the abnormal tissue, such as a cancerous tumor, depends in part on the depth of the light penetration into the tissue, the photosensitizer concentration and its cellular distribution, and the availability of molecular oxygen, which will depend upon the vasculature system supplying the abnormal tissue or tumor.
Various types of PDT light sources and their methods of use have been described in the prior art literature. However, publications describing appropriate light sources and the effects of transcutaneous light delivery to internal treatment sites within a patient's body, for PDT purposes, are relatively limited in number. It has generally been accepted that the ability of a light source external to the body to cause clinically useful cytotoxicity during PDT is limited in depth to a range of 1–2 cm or less, depending on the photosensitizer.
Treatment of superficial tumors in this manner has been associated with inadvertent skin damage due to accumulation of the photosensitizer in normal skin tissue, which is a property of all systemically administered photosensitizers in clinical use. For example, clinically useful porphyrins such as PHOTOPHRIN™ (a QLT, Ltd. brand of sodium porfimer) are associated with general dermal photosensitivity lasting up to six weeks. PURLYTIN™, which is a brand of purpurin, and FOSCAN™, which is brand of chlorin, sensitize the skin to light for at least several weeks, so that patients to whom these drugs are administered must avoid exposure to sunlight or other bright light sources during this time to avoid unintended phototoxic effects on the normal dermal tissue. Indeed, efforts have been made to develop photoprotectants to reduce skin photosensitivity (see, for example: Dillon et al., “Photochemistry and Photobiology,” 48(2): 235–238 (1988); and Sigdestad et al., British J. of Cancer, 74: S89–S92, (1996)).
Recently, it has been reported that a relatively intense external laser light source might be employed transcutaneously to cause two-photon absorption by a photosensitizer at a greater depth within a patient's body, so that it is theoretically possible to cause a very limited volume of cytotoxicity in diseased tissue at greater depths than previously believed possible. However, no clinical studies exist to support this contention. One would expect that the passage of an intense beam of light through the skin would lead to the same risk of phototoxic injury to non-target normal tissues, such as skin and subcutaneous normal tissue, if this light is applied in conjunction with a systemically administered photosensitizer.
For example, one PDT modality discloses the use of an intense laser source to activate a photosensitizer drug within a precisely defined boundary (see: U.S. Pat. No. 5,829,448, Fisher et al., “Method for improved selectivity in photo-activation of molecular agents”). The two-photon methodology requires a high power, high intensity laser for drug activation using a highly collimated beam, with a high degree of spatial control. For a large tumor, this treatment is not practical, since the beam would have to be swept across the skin surface in some sort of set, repeating pattern, so that the beam encompasses the entire volume of the tumor. Patient or organ movement would be a problem, because the beam could become misaligned. Exposure of normal tissue or skin in the path of the beam and subcutaneous tissue photosensitivity is not addressed in the prior art literature. Any photosensitizer absorbed by normal tissue in the path of the beam will likely be activated and cause unwanted collateral normal tissue damage. Clearly, it would be preferable to employ a technique that minimizes the risk of damage to normal tissue and which does not depend upon a high intensity laser light source to produce two photon effects. Further, it would be preferable to provide a prolonged exposure of an internal treatment site with light at a lower fluence rate, which tends to reduce the risk of harm to non-target tissue or skin and subcutaneous normal tissue and reduces any collateral tissue damage due to phototoxicity.
Other PDT modalities have employed the use of a light source producing a low total fluence delivered over a short time period to avoid harm to skin caused by activation of a photosensitizer and have timed the administration of such drugs to better facilitate destruction of small tumors in animals (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,705,518, Richter et al.). However, although not taught nor suggested by the prior art, it would be preferable to employ a light source that enables a relatively large total fluence PDT, but at a lower intensity so that larger tumor volumes can more readily be treated as well as diffused diseases, including metastasized tumors and other pathological tissue formation resulting from infectious or pathogenic agents, such as bacterial infections or other disease states, such as immunological diseases.
If, as is often the case, a target tumor tissue lies below an intact cutaneous layer of normal tissue, the main drawbacks of all transcutaneous illumination methods, whether they be external laser or external non-laser light sources, are: (1) the risk of damage to non-target tissues, such as the more superficial cutaneous and subcutaneous tissues overlying the target tumor mass; (2) the limited volume of a tumor that can be treated; and (3) the limitation of treatment depth. Damage to normal tissue lying between the light source and the target tissue in a tumor occurs due to the uptake of photosensitizer by the skin and other tissues overlying the tumor mass, and the resulting undesired photoactivation of the photosensitizer absorbed by these tissues. The consequences of inadvertent skin damage caused by transcutaneous light delivery to a subcutaneous tumor may include severe pain, serious infection, and fistula formation. The limited volume of tumor that can be clinically treated and the limitations of the light penetration below the skin surface in turn have led those skilled in this art to conclude that clinical transcutaneous PDT is only suitable for treatment of superficial, thin lesions.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,445,608, Chen et al, discloses the use of implanted light sources for internally administering PDT. Typically, the treatment of any internal cancerous lesions with PDT requires at least a minimally invasive procedure such as an endoscopic technique, for positioning the light source proximate to the tumor, or open surgery to expose the tumor site. There is some risk associated with any internal procedure performed on the body. Clearly, there would be significant advantage to a completely noninvasive form of PDT directed to subcutaneous and deep tumors, which avoids the inadvertent activation of any photosensitizer in skin and intervening tissues. To date, this capability has not been clinically demonstrated nor realized. Only in animal studies utilizing mice or other rodents with very thin cutaneous tissue layers, have very small superficial subcutaneous tumors been treated with transcutaneously transmitted light. These minimal in vivo studies do not provide an enabling disclosure or even suggest how transcutaneous light sources might safely be used to treat large tumors in humans with PDT, however.
Another PDT modality in the prior art teaches the destruction of abnormal cells that are circulating in the blood using light therapy, while leaving the blood vessels intact (see, for example: U.S. Pat. No. 5,736,563, Richter et al.; WO 94/06424, Richter; WO 93/00005, Chapman et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,484,803, Richter et al., and WO 93/24127, North et al.). Instead, it might be preferable to deliberately damage and occlude blood vessels that form the vasculature supplying nutrients and oxygen to a tumor mass, thus rendering a given volume of abnormal tissue in the tumor (not circulating cells) ischemic and anoxic and thus promoting the death of the tumor tissue serviced by these blood vessels.
To facilitate the selective destruction of the blood vessels that service a tumor, it would be desirable to selectively bind a photosensitizing agent to specific target tissue antigens, such as those found on the epithelial cells comprising tumor blood vessels. This targeting scheme should decrease the amount of photosensitizing drug required for effective PDT, which in turn should reduce the total light energy, and the light intensity needed for effective photoactivation of the drug. Even if only a portion of a blood vessel is occluded as a result of the PDT, downstream thrombosis is likely to occur, leading to a much greater volume of tumor necrosis compared to a direct cytotoxic method of destroying the tumor cells, in which the photosensitizer drug must be delivered to all abnormal cells that are to be destroyed. One method of ensuring highly specific uptake of a photosensitizer by epithelial cells in tumor vessels would be to use the avidin-biotin targeting system. Highly specific binding of a targeted agent such as a PDT drug to tumor blood vessels (but not to the cells in normal blood vessels) is enabled by this two step system. While there are reports in the scientific literature describing the binding between biotin and streptavidin to target tumor cells, there are no reports of using this ligand-receptor binding pair to bind with cells in tumor vessels nor in conjunction with carrying out prolonged PDT light exposure (see, for example: Savitsky et al., SPIE, 3191:343–353, (1997); and Ruebner et al., SPIE, 2625:328–332, (1996)). In a non-PDT modality, the biotin-streptavidin ligand-receptor binding pair has also been reported as useful in binding tumor targeting conjugates with radionuclides (see U.S. Pat. No. 5,630,996, Reno et al.) and with monoclonal antibodies (see Casalini et al., J. Nuclear Med., 38(9):1378–1381, (1997) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,482,698, Griffiths).
Other ligand-receptor binding pairs have been used in PDT for targeting tumor antigens, but the prior art fails to teach their use in conjunction with targeting cells in blood vessels or treatment of large, established tumors (see, for example, Mew et al., J. of Immunol., 130(3): 1473–1477, (1983)).
High-powered lasers are usually employed as a light source in administering PDT to shorten the time required for the treatment (see W. G. Fisher, et al., Photochemistry and Photobiology, 66(2): 141–155, (1997)). However, it would likely be safer to use a low power, non-coherent light source that remains energized for two or more hours to increase the depth of the photoactivation. However, this approach is contrary to the prior art that recommends PDT be carried out with a brief exposure from a high powered, collimated light source.
Recently, there has been much interest in the use of anti-angiogenesis drugs for treating cancerous tumors by minimizing the blood supply that feeds a tumor's growth. However, targeting of tumor vessels using anti-angiogenesis drugs may lead to reduction in size of small tumors and may prevent new tumor growth, but will likely be ineffective in causing reliable regression of large, established tumors in humans. However, by using a combination of anti-angiogenesis and a photosensitizer in the targeting conjugate, it is likely that a large volume tumor can be destroyed by administering PDT.
In treating large tumors, a staged procedure may be preferable in order to control tumor swelling and the amount of necrotic tissue produced as the PDT causes destruction of the tumor mass. For example, by activating a photosensitizer bound to tumor vessels in the center of a large tumor and then sequentially expanding the treatment zone outward in a stepwise manner, a large volume tumor can be gradually ablated in a controlled fashion in order to prevent swelling due to edema and inflammation, which is problematic in organs such as the brain.
Delivered in vivo, PDT has been demonstrated to cause vessel thrombosis and vascular constriction, occlusion, and collapse. And though the treatment of very superficial, thin tumors has been reported using transcutaneous light, there are no clinical reports of transcutaneous light activation being used to destroy deeper, thick tumors that are disposed more than 2 cm below the skin surface. Clearly, there is a need for a PDT paradigm that enables large volume tumors that are disposed well below the surface of the skin to be destroyed with transcutaneous light activation.
PDT of locally recurrent breast cancer (LRBC) with lutetium texaphyrin has been reported by T. J. Wieman et al., in program/proceedings, American Society of Clinical Oncology, Vol. 18, P. 111A (1999). This study by Wieman et al. involved the treatment of superficial recurrent chest wall breast cancer. Lutrin™ (lutetium texaphyrin, brand; Pharmacyclics, Inc, Sunnyvale, Calif.) was administered by injection at a dose of 1.5 mg/Kg to 4.0 mg/Kg and followed by chest wall illumination by 150 joules or 100 joules of light at 732 nm using laser or LED device. However, this study did not suggest or disclose the use of transcutaneous light delivery to treat a subcutaneous tumor mass. Further, at the light dosage employed, a sustained delivery of light at the reported intensity may not be possible without adverse reactions.
It is apparent that the usual method of administering PDT to treat bulky tumors, which relies on invasive introduction of optical fibers, is not the best approach. It would be highly advantageous to apply light transcutaneously in a completely noninvasive method to treat such large tumors (as well as small and even microscopic tumors), without risking damage to non-target tissues, such as skin and normal subcutaneous tissue. Instead of the conventional technique, a method of photoactivation and a series of photosensitizer constructs is needed that enable PDT induced cytotoxicity, on both a macro and microscopic scale, without risk to the cutaneous layer, or any surrounding normal tissues. Also, the therapeutic index should be enhanced if a specific photosensitizer drug targeting scheme is employed.
Citation of the above documents is not intended as an admission that any of the foregoing is pertinent prior art. All statements as to the date or representation as to the contents of these documents is based on the information available to the applicants and does not constitute any admission as to the correctness of the dates or contents of these documents. Further, all documents referred to throughout this specification are hereby incorporated by reference herein, in their entirety.